Professor Angela Smith

Professor of Modern Literature

Qualifications

1989–92 – BA (Hons) degree in English and History – First class honours

Roehampton Institute London

1992–93 – MA in Twentieth Century Literature

University of Sussex

1993–1997 – Roehampton Institute London – (1993–4 Teaching Assistantship at Roehampton)

PhD: The Great War and the Emergence of Female Modernism – awarded December 1997

1998 – SEDA accreditation as a teacher in Higher Education

University of Plymouth Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education

Professional membership

AHRC Peer Review College

Editorial Board: Journal of War and Culture Studies

Roles on external bodies

AHRC Peer Review College

Editorial Board: Journal of War and Culture Studies

Teaching interests

War Writing Since 1914 

Research interests

• War Writing: I have a particular interest in literatures of the First World War, fiction, creative non-fiction, life writing and reportage all of which are represented in my published work on this topic. Also war fiction of the long twentieth century, 1914 to the present, with a particular focus on memory. I have also worked on the idea of 'alternate spaces' of war, moving beyond the most common understanding of war writing and experience to consider more marginalised impressions and perspectives. 

• Gender and War writing, particularly the First World War. I have a particular specialism in women's writing of the First World War. Much of my published work engages with this directly. Most recently I have explored the experience of women on the Eastern Front through their writings. A specifically gendered experience unique in First World War studies. 

• War and Memory: Relating to the ways in which war is represented and commemorated across the long twentieth century, 1914 to the present, particularly the ways in which literatures of war contribute to the development of popular and cultural memory.

• Discourses of the Women's Suffrage Movement. I am interested in the relationship between the campaign for women's suffrage and the First World War, as explored in my book, Suffrage Discourse in Britain During the First World War. This research is currently being applied to a major AHRC funded project to commemorate the centenary of the Representation of People Act in 1918, working with the University of Lincoln and Vote 100 at Westminster. 

• Historical fiction with a particular focus on the intersect between HF and Speculative fiction/ fantasy. This new project draws upon a range of different modes of writing to explore ideas of 'genre'.

I would welcome PhD candidates with an interest in any of these areas.

Research degrees awarded to supervised students

PhDs

• Anna Trussler on the poetry of Ronald Duncan.

• Lucy Durneen, ‘Everything beautiful is Far Away’ (Creative Writing).

• Mary Jacobs ’Politics and Aesthetics in the Literary Work of Sylvia Townsend Warner’.

• Adhraa Al Shammari who is writing her PhD on the influence of First World War poetry and Modernism on the development of Iraqi war poetry of the 1980s.

Grants & contracts

EXTERNAL FUNDING

2017 – AHRC Follow on Funding for project 'What Difference Did the War make?' in partnership with the University of Lincoln and Vote 100 , Westminster. 

2013 – AHRC Networking Grant for 'Alternate Spaces of the Great War'. The project will run from 1/09/13 – 31/7/15 and includes partners from University of Lincoln, Queen Mary's London and Oxford Brookes.

February 2003–February 2004 AHRB funded Research leave to complete my Suffrage book. My post-leave report received the highest accreditation from the AHRB

November 2001 – The British Academy paid my expenses to speak at the North American Conference on British Studies, Toronto.

1994–7 British Academy Three Year Studentship for the completion of my PhD

1992–3 British Academy One year Studentship to fund my MA